The chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmacology of biogenic amines, their amino acid precursors and metabolic products have been investigated. The areas of specific interest are: 1) The immunohistochemical localization of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) in malignant and normal tissues of porcine, rodent and human. 2) The in vitro synthesis of immunoreactive forms of COMT using polyadenylated mRNA and "Western" immunoblot analysis. 3) The purification and microsequencing of 23,000 dalton, rat hepatic COMT. 4) The examination of the temporal relationship between uterine epithelial COMT and implantation of fertilized blastocyst in rodent and pig. 5) The effect of the substitution of fluorine on the aromatic ring of biogenic amines, their amino acid precursors, and various alpha- and beta-adrenergic antagonists on the agonist properties and interactions with monoamine oxidase and COMT. 6) The application of F19 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and F18 positron tomography to the uptake, release, storage and metabolism of 6-fluoro DOPA and 6-fluoro dopamine in vesicular preparations from rodent striatum and cerebral cortex and in vivo in monkey and man. 7) The morphological characterization of vesicular bodies prepared from rodent brain by microphotometric birefringence "real time" microscopy. 8) The mechanism of toxicity of 2-fluorohistidine in normal and leukemic mice. 9) The characterization of the tryptophan-deficient rat.